


Zoomies

by pyrchance



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Gen, Here There Be Kittens, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Quarantine Life, Zoom calls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25264534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrchance/pseuds/pyrchance
Summary: Patrick drops an f-bomb (or two) on a live internet interview.Pete is appropriately concerned.
Relationships: Patrick Stump/Pete Wentz
Comments: 9
Kudos: 36





	Zoomies

**Author's Note:**

> For an anon prompt on tumblr that asked for Lalochezia - The use of abusive language to relieve stress or ease pain.

“Oh, go fuck yourself.”

Pete perks up at the sound of Patrick swearing. Not because this is unusual. Patrick has a potty mouth that is only getting worse the closer he gets to becoming the old man he was always meant to be. No, what is unusual however is Patrick getting caught dropping the f-bomb mid-interview.

Even their interviewer freezes up. Mind you, Pete is only half certain this is because of Patrick’s little slip up. The reliability of Zoom is a monster onto itself.

Patrick doesn’t seem to notice that he’s attracted the attention of all three of his bandmates, their interviewer _, and_ the live fan chat stream.

And boy does the chat notice.

“Everything alright over there, Trick?” Pete asks, keeping his best concerned-face on and watching the chat explodes into activity. Really, it’s so easy.

“Fine!” Patrick snaps, “ _Fuck!_ ” He hisses the last word, but not low enough to escape the speakers. He’s bent over something out of screen, the his hat obscuring the expression on his face, but not how shiny his neck is. Pete nearly breaks character and grins. It’s been a while since he’s seen Patrick that red.

“You’re kind of worrying me, man,” Pete says. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” Patrick flaps one irritable hand at the screen without looking up. “Just—just move on, okay? Next question please.”

If there’s one thing Pete does like about this new interview platform, it’s the ability to watch his own face in realtime. He widens his mouth a little more, making it a shallow pout. In the top-left corner, Joe catches the movement and rolls his eyes. Glad to see he’s not the only one paying attention.

“Uh, gentlemen,” says the interviewer, clearing his throat, “I’ve got some fan questions rolling in. If you’re ready?”

Yeah, Pete bets he does. He settles back in his chair, watching Patrick’s screen idly as the interviewer makes banter with Joe.

Fan questions are a mixed bag usually—some of them are just a rote and tired as the so-called professionals, but occasionally there’s something spicy in there. Pete likes the irreverent questions the best. The one’s that remind him he’s a person and not just a wind-up music machine.

Today’s questions are some of the same.

“So, and we can go around the screen for this one, @missusmisery wants to know which of your songs is you favorite to play live?”

Pete is so _bored_ of this question he wishes he could literally scrub its component words clean from the dictionary. His mouth is launches into the same answer it always does (‘oh wow, hmm, that’s a tricky one, it changes day by day, but if I had to choose…’).

He’s barely even conscious of the words he’s saying. Sometimes he wishes he was like Andy and could just foist the job of speaking off onto someone else for a while.

Of course, these days Patrick gets nearly as many questions as he does; not to mention Joe willingly stepping up to the plate (when the goddamn interviews even remember there are _four_ members of the band, two which don’t start with P).

Pete stops talking when a song name finally trickles out of his mouth, zoning out to read the comments in the chat as the rest of the guys step in. It’s going almost too fast for him to read. He’s not wearing his contacts. He squinting at it, catching bits and pieces of their names and a veritable hoard of exclamation marks when the interviewer clears his throat again, awkwardly.

“Um, Patrick? Your favorite song?”

Pete looks up. He didn’t even notice the odd silence after Andy finished talking.

Patrick is red in his monitor. He’s still bent over, hat covering his face, but there’s a tension to his shoulders that raises the hackles in Pete’s mind.

“Patrick?”

Patrick twitches at the sound of his voice. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, yeah. I’m here.”

“We were asking about your favorite song to play live,” prompts the interviewer, like _that’s_ the important thing here.

“You okay?” cuts in Pete. He grimaces at the harshness of his own voice, then wants to grimace at his grimace. He smooths out his own expression in the camera.

Still, Patrick doesn’t look up.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Sorry. I just— _ouch! You son-of-a-bitch!”_

Pete doesn’t see what happens. Just sees the way Patrick seems to curl up over something on the screen.

The interviewer is laughing nervously, “Wow. Like I said folks, this chat isn’t for little kids. We’re not the radio over here so don’t be alarmed if…”

Pete stops listening. The interviewer is the only one still smiling. Joe and Andy are both stiff-faced, staring at wherever Patrick must be on their screen. God, Pete really fucking hates Zoom sometimes. But at least it allows him to do the unthinkable. Like whipping out his phone during an interview.

He hides the movement in his lap and quickly sends out the message, feeling more guilty than any time he ever pulled the same stunt in school.

_To PATRICK:_

u ok? what happened?

He actually hears the ding of Patrick’s phone through the computer (that dinosaur). He watches Patrick look away and read it, before slowly shaking his head. He doesn’t reach out for his phone, which means…something. Pete doesn’t actually know what.

_To PATRICK:_

need to stop?

Again, Patrick looks at his phone without picking it up. Again, he shakes his head. Pete lets out an irritable sigh and quickly sends out a third message to the rest of the guys, telling them to keep going, before tucking his phone under his thigh.

The next ten minutes trickle by tremendously slow. If there are good fan questions in the batch, Pete doesn’t hear them. Watching the chat isn’t fun any more either when half the comments are the same concerns and questions about Patrick swirling around his own head.

Somehow, they make it through to the end of the interview without any more outbursts. Patrick even manages to look up at some point, though his mouth is pinched and he’s still half hunched over. The second the live stream ends, Pete drops the charade, skipping out on the goodbye pleasantries and shoving away from his desktop.

Forgetting about his hat and glasses, barely remembering to grab his mask, he’s in his car and driving towards Patrick’s house within seconds of the stream ending.

His phone rings on the way there. It’s Andy.

“Hey,” says Pete when his bluetooth picks it up, “I’m on my way.”

He doesn’t need to clarify. “Patrick’s not picking up. I’ll tell Joe,” says Andy. “Text us.”

The call drops. Pete races through the cleared out streets and pulls up to Patrick’s in record time.

Since month two, they’ve relaxed their quarantines just enough that Pete doesn’t feel guilty unlocking Patrick’s door and letting himself in. Patrick’s house is messy in the way he only gets between tours. It’s an obstacle race of kicked-off shoes and strewn bags he has to dodge through to make it to the office door.

He doesn’t knock. This is Patrick we’re talking about. But he does hesitate, thinking of just what sort of terrible injury awaits him on the other side of the door. Did Patrick slip? Did he somehow _stab_ himself? Is he _bleeding?_

What he finds beyond the door is nothing that his mind could ever conjure.

“You bastard! No, fuck you! Jesus Christ, _come out!”_

Patrick is no longer sitting. He’s standing, but he’s all hunched over. His hands are pawing at something in his pants almost desperately. It would be very funny, except for the absolute agony on Patrick’s face when he looks up.

“Pete! Thank, fuck!”

That’s an invitation as any. Pete quickly scurries in from the doorway, taking Patrick by the shoulders to steady him and finding the muscles in corded up knots there.

Patrick doesn’t move from his hunched over position. His hands don’t stop clutching his pants, even as he plants his forehead in Pete’s chest. “I— _ow! Fuck!_ —I can’t get the little fucker out.”

“In your…pants?” Pete asks.

“Yes! _Ouch!_ In my pants! Now hurry up and help me!”

Pete’s mind is basically an explosion of exclamation points at this point. No words. Pete doesn’t trust himself with any words right now.

He nods and silently detangles Patrick’s head from his chest. Without a word, he drops to his knees to inspect the situation in his best friend’s…pants.

Pete thinks he’s going to chew a bloody hole through his tongue before this is done.

Luckily, the closer he gets to the…situation, the easier it is to pull his mind out of the gutter. Patrick isn’t grabbing at his bits—though his hands are _close_. Instead, Pete can see there’s some sort of lump on Patrick’s left thigh that his hands are cupped around, seeming to try to push what ever it is that’s lodged beneath his pants _down_.

You know, _away_ from Patrick’s, uh, good bits.

Okay, so maybe Pete’s mind is going to splash around in the muck for a little while longer.

Whatever it is in Patrick’s pants is clearly an animal. It moves when Patrick pushes on it, causing Patrick to curse up a blue streak. It’s relatively big too. Definitely not a bug, or even a mouse.

“Get it out, Pete! I swear to god, I will murder you right now if you don’t _get it out!_ ”

“I, uh, I think I’m gonna have to reach down in there,” Pete says slowly, totally normal, like telling Patrick he needs into his pants is something he does everyday.

Patrick grimaces. “Can’t you just, like, reach _up_ for it?”

Pete surveys the snug fit of Patrick’s jeans. He’s lost some weight since quarantine started. These must be new. Pete likes them.

“Nope. Too skinny, man,” Pete decides. “In from the top it is.”

“Oh, Jesus!” groans Patrick. He squeezes his eyes and pants and that’s really not doing Pete any favorite in trying to keep this PG. “Fine. Whatever. Just hurry up.”

Pete knows better than to argue with the boss. He looks at the way Patrick is clutching at his leg and takes the initiative to pop Patrick’s button himself. They both can’t look at each other as Pete pulls down Patrick’s fly which is fine really because Pete is far to busy peering down Patrick’s pants.

There’s a lot to look at there. Pete gets highly distracted from the main attraction only when a tiny set of claws bursts into view like some villain in a black and white horror film.

The claws are attached to a tiny gray paw that is attached to Patrick’s thigh mainly through brute stabbing force. The second Pete opens Patrick’s pants the paw springs into frantic action, digging into Patrick’s thigh quickly followed by its twin as a tiny gray kitten attempts to claw its way out of Patrick’s pants.

“You have a pussy!”

See this? This is why Pete is divorcing his mouth and putting it up on e-bay. He didn’t _mean_ to say that. The twelve-year-old boy in him just slipped it out.

Patrick headbutts him in the chest and growls, actually growls. “No jokes! Get it _out!”_

Pete nods swiftly.

He girds himself, mentally tucking his own loins away, before picturing the great claw machines of his youth and plunging his hand deep into Patrick’s pants.

_Please let me grab the right thing! Please let me grab the right thing!_

“Uh, Pete?” squeaks Patrick.

_“Whoops!”_

Pete releases quickly, chases the skin down Patrick’s thigh, and finally closes in on something with teeth. He grabs the kitten by the widest part and tugs, Patrick cursing like it’s the soundtrack to their lives. The whole thing probably takes twenty seconds longer than it needs to 1) because Pete keeps his eyes squeezed shut the entire time, and 2) because Patrick is rhythmically beating his skull against Pete’s chest like it’s a drum and this is the encore.

“ _Wrrrrrao_!” hisses the cat, sinking its tiny needle teeth into Pete’s hand.

“ _Fuck!”_ hisses Pete.

He quickly sets the kitten down—only dropping it a foot or so—and watches as it goes sprinting out of the room, puffed and spitting.

Pete blinks down at his hand which is already starting to bleed, before looking over and seeing Patrick doing the same down at his legs through his open pants.

There’s a lot that could probably be said here. _What the fuck, Patrick?_ seems particularly astute. _How did that even happen?_ Still, his best friend is in pain.

“So,” Pete drawls, “you got a cat.”

Patrick slumps. “I meant to get a cat. I think maybe they gave me a demon instead.”

The adrenaline is already fading off. The flush on both their skins is not. Pete thinks of how nice it is to see his friend in person, instead of through a screen. Somethings just don’t translate.

“I don’t know,” he says, beginning to smile. “It’s not like you have to be demonic to want to climb Patrick Stump like a tree.”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “Isn’t it enough that you just had your hand down my pants. Do we really have to go through the jokes right now?”

Pete considers this. On the one hand, Patrick is clearly in pain.

But on the other…

“I’m just saying, I’m worried about those nice pants you just got all dirty. You know, if you need help taking them off, I’m something of a local expert.”

As Patrick’s fist barrels towards Pete’s arm, he has to grin.

Yeah, there are some things that just don’t translate on screen.

**Author's Note:**

> This happened because of an ask on tumblr. You can come bother me over there @[pyrchance](https://pyrchance.tumblr.com). 
> 
> Also, zoomies is that awesome think that happens when your dog/cat/whatever gets way to overexcited and runs around crazy. I'm not exactly sure why that cat decided to climb Patrick like a tree, but the title was too perfect to pass up.


End file.
